Page 39 of Cain

“Sure.”

“Cider?” he asked.

My heart swelled a little at that. At him remembering.

I mean, clearly, this guy wasn’t wanting for choice. He could have met dozens of women since we’d shared that drink. Gotten all of them drinks.

But he remembered what I liked to drink.

“Or I can get you a coffee, if you’d prefer. We have all the syrups.”

“Cider sounds good for now,” I said, jumping at the sound of the pool balls cracking together when the music paused for the barest of seconds between songs.

“Sorry. It gets a little rowdy around here,” he said, his hand going to my hip for a brief second to guide me to the bar, but dropping before I could really sink into the sensation.

“Is it like this a lot?”

“Most nights. The younger guys are, well, young.”

He wasn’t wrong.

Cain was definitely the oldest of the bunch. With the tall goth, hot skeleton guy being next eldest, maybe. The rest seemed like they were in their early twenties.

Cain moved behind the bar, digging around in the fridge and producing a hard cider.

“How have you been?” he asked, taking the bottle back from me to uncap it when I struggled.

How had I been?

Panicky.

Overwhelmed.

Drowning.

“Okay. You?”

“Bored since I finished the kitchen refresh.”

“Bored?” I asked, doing a slow, pointed look around the craziness in the clubhouse.

“Believe it or not, that all becomes background noise after a while.”

“Damn you, Ronan,” a woman grumbled, making me turn to find her standing up from the poker table to pull off her top, leaving her in a light pink bra.

I shot another look at Cain.

“Yeah, even the strip poker loses its shock value after a while,” he admitted. “You play?”

“Strip poker? No.”

“Poker at all?”

“Oh, also no.”

“Don’t imagine pool is your game, either. How about a tour instead?”

“Starting with this refreshed kitchen you were talking about,” I said, falling into step with him as he led us through the crush of people into the doorway he’d been leaning in when I’d first walked in.